Take a look at some of the most common questions in language learning, and what science has to say about them. We’ll also look at the strategies science provides that can help us become better language learners.

They say that children learn languages the best. But that doesn’t mean that adults should give up. TED asked some of the polyglots in TED’s Open Translation Project to share their secrets to mastering a foreign language. Their best strategies distill into seven basic principles.

A Language Map is a table where the words of a language are put in arranged columns, according to their usage in a sentence. In other words, the table holds the subject, verb, object, adjective, etc. of a sentence in proper order, according to the structural pattern of the language. This structure makes proper sentence formation and word usage easier to understand.

Reasons for learning a new language are changing with time. People used to learn new languages to research foreign traditions, and to know history and culture. Are these reasons still valid in contemporary times? Why should one think about learning a new language in the coming decade?

There should be no second thoughts about learning multiple languages. However, some people have the perception that knowing more than one language is simply unnecessary. They believe that knowing one official language is enough (or one official language and one local language if you happen to live in a country with dialects). In fact, there are myths associated with learning a new language. Here is a compilation of frequently heard language myths.